In My Country

walking by the waters,
down where an honest river
shakes hands with the sea,
a woman passed round me
in a slow watchful circle,
as if I were a superstition;

or the worst dregs of her imagination,
so when she finally spoke
her words spliced into bars
of an old wheel. A segment of air.
Where do you come from?
'Here,' I said. 'Here. These parts'.

Elegy (from Rapture)

Who'll know then, when they walk by the grave
where your bones will be brittle things - this bone here
that swoops away from your throat, and this,
which perfectly fits the scoop of my palm, and these
which I count with my lips, and your skull,
which blooms on the pillow now, and your fingers,
beautiful in their little rings - that love, which wanders history,
singled you out in your time?

                                                     Love loved you best; lit you
with a flame, like talent, under your skin; let you
move through your days and nights, blessed in your flesh,
blood, hair, as though they were lovely garments
you wore to pleasure the air. Who'll guess, if they read
your stone, or press their thumbs to the scars
of your dates, that were I alive, I would lie on the grass
above your bones till I mirrored your pose, your infinite grace?

If I Was Dead (from Rapture)

If I was dead,

and my bones adrift

like dropped oars

in the deep, turning earth;

or drowned,

and my skull

a listening shell

on the dark ocean bed;

if I was dead,

and my heart

soft mulch

for a red, red rose;

or burned,

and my body

a fistful of grit, thrown

in the face of the wind;

if I was dead,

and my eyes,

blind at the roots of flowers,

wept into nothing,

I swear your love

would raise me

out of my grave,

in my flesh and blood,

like Lazarus;

hungry for this,

and this, and this,

your living kiss.

Hour (from Rapture)

Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.